Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's sermon shows he is "in tune" with pope

In his remarkable sermon last Sunday, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, showed that he is clearly “in tune” with Pope Francis, says the Irish Times.

During a Mass last Sunday marking the centenary of the parish church of Our Lady of Dolours in Glasnevin, the archbishop said “as a church we have to rediscover that notion of rejoicing in repentance and in welcoming the sinner, in reaching out to encounter the sinner and the unbeliever, rather than setting out conditions in advance.

“We have all too often developed a sort of puritanical, harsh and demanding church. We have set out complicated lists of sins and have often made return so much harder and humanly more difficult.

“We have made the sinner into a category to be punished and managed by rules and norms rather than a person who had gone astray, who had tarnished his or her own dignity,” he said, according to the Irish Times, “whereas the only way back is to reach out, embrace and restore that dignity.”

Dr. Martin said that Pope Francis “has an amazing ability to find simple words to pose fundamental questions about the life of the Christian and of the church. He challenges us to become ‘the tender embrace of the Jesus’ for all who are marginalised and on the fringes and on the frontiers of the society in which we live.

“He does not simply say, as a theological statement, that the church is the tender embrace of Christ’s love. He challenges us to become that tender embrace.

“We can repeat doctrinal formulae ad nauseam. We can enounce moral teaching with clinical clarity, but all of that will be worthless and the church’s teaching will appear to others like any other ideology, if we do not reflect in our lives – personal and institutional – the tender embrace of the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

“Pope Francis has noted that at times we feel that the failures in our evangelising efforts are due to the fact that so many in today’s world are closed to God; they do not hear the call of Jesus; that when Jesus knocks on our doors we do not let him in. The pope however counters that by adding, ‘We also fail at times when Jesus knocks from within and we do not let him out’.

“The church must reach out. An inward looking, self-centred, narcissistic church will never witness to the generosity and care of Jesus Christ.”